Take a Virtual Tour
of the store
– Kerry Triffin
Steve Berger: Forget the Cows
Vermont woodworker left the farm to
explore the boundaries of furniture art.
As a farm boy in Nappanee, Indiana, Steve
Berger’s first try at woodworking was a gun case he made in shop class.
He enjoyed the work, but he couldn’t pursue it—he had too much work
milking the family cows.
It wasn’t until a few decades later, in the mid-1980s, that Steve began
building furniture professionally for a woodshop in northern Indiana.
“They did reproduction-style furniture, mostly hand-crafted,” Berger
says. “I’ll tell ya, I learned a lot.”
As Kerry Triffin explains it, the craft signaled a turning point in
Steve’s life.
“At a certain point he said to his dad, ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t do
the cows anymore.’ He apprenticed at good furniture shops. Then little
by little he started buying very serious old woodworking equipment at
auction prices, built himself a workshop behind his house, and began to
run his own business,” Kerry says.
These days, Steve runs a one-man woodshop in rural Vermont. And every
piece he makes is sold at Kerry’s store, Fairhaven Furniture in New
Haven, Connecticut.
“Steve is one of our greatest furniture-making resources,” Kerry says.
“He truly has the smarts, the skills, the creativity, and the
enthusiasm to do anything he sets himself to. Steve, through our
association I believe, has moved past being simply a fine maker of
furniture into exploring his boundaries as an artist.”
Every two weeks, Steve drives down I-91 with a load of new pieces for
Fairhaven Furniture. As a custom woodworker, he receives drawings made
by the store’s designers of pieces designed for a customer’s unique
specifications. Occasionally Steve will meet with a customer to learn
exactly how they’d like their home and furniture to look.
“People ask me what style I like to make. I say I have no preference, I
like to make a whole lot of things so I don’t get tired of any one
thing. It’s more important for me to make the customer happy,” Berger
says. “I like more freeform style—live edge style—taking a board and
trying to make a piece of furniture with it as it is.
“Fairhaven Furniture is different than any other stores around. At most
furniture stores, whether in Connecticut or Vermont it’s usually
factory-made stuff. It’s either that or nothing. When you see something
in his store, if you want to change it, they will.”
Adds Kerry, “As I see it, Steve’s a man on a journey, the
actual destination of which is not yet known. But it’s clear to me
that whatever he produces along the way will impress and inspire.”
